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beehives 's review for:
Cryptonomicon
by Neal Stephenson
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
Personally I wouldn't consider this among Stephenson's best. It's bloated and in desperate need of an editor, contains turns of phrase that made me physically cringe, and features a rotating cast of horny white male narrators (excluding one Japanese male character who IMO was more interesting but at times one-dimensional and also seemingly never horny). I did like the alternate-universe aspects and thought the fictional countries were interesting and distinct. Stephenson also did a good job weaving together perspectives and timelines, though it felt too obvious at the end, as though some of the reveals were meant to be a plot twist or shocking discovery in the last 100 pages of the book.
Definitely more of a WW2 novel than a cryptography or spy novel, so if you want a novel with a crash course on (modern) cryptography systems, this is not really the book for you. I'm glad my experience is over and I don't plan to re-read this book.
Other recs: Read something by Cory Doctorow if you want more interesting white guy narrators and/or treatises on (modern) cybersecurity. Or, if you must read Stephenson, Zodiac and Snow Crash are much better.
Worst line: "She is lazily regarding a map of Scandinavia. Sweden dangles like a flaccid, circumcised phallus. Finland bulges scrotally underneath."
Definitely more of a WW2 novel than a cryptography or spy novel, so if you want a novel with a crash course on (modern) cryptography systems, this is not really the book for you. I'm glad my experience is over and I don't plan to re-read this book.
Other recs: Read something by Cory Doctorow if you want more interesting white guy narrators and/or treatises on (modern) cybersecurity. Or, if you must read Stephenson, Zodiac and Snow Crash are much better.
Worst line: "She is lazily regarding a map of Scandinavia. Sweden dangles like a flaccid, circumcised phallus. Finland bulges scrotally underneath."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Violence, War
Moderate: Body horror, Infidelity, Sexual content
Minor: Child death, Sexual violence, Slavery, Antisemitism, Cannibalism, Alcohol, Colonisation
It's a war novel, expect descriptions of horrible things from WW2. Uses outdated slurs (homo, Nip/Jap ) but generally doesn't espouse homophobia. One scene significantly features the use of blackface in war.